In the current information age, information technology (IT) tools play a significant role in our daily activities, and there are often discussions of the desirableness of a paperless society. However, notwithstanding such discussions, there remains a need by users of computers and other information terminals (such as smartphones, PDAs, other information appliances, etc.) for printing functionality. Devices having printing or plotting functionality, such as printers, copiers, multi-function devices, etc., continue to play a significant role at home, at work and even elsewhere.
There are circumstances in which production print facilities and/or services are employed for high-quality output and/or large volume output. While such facilities and/or services are often provided by brick-and-mortar businesses, the source documents are often uploaded through an electronic storefront or portal via a network to the production print facility or service.
Further, while in many instances the source documents are generated and/or controlled by the production print consumer, there are also many other instances in which the source documents are shared by a pool of users or consumers. In this latter circumstance, the source documents is typically maintained by someone other than the user or consumer, such as in a catalog, a document management system, or the like. In, for example, the case that the source documents are maintained by a third party (i.e. other than the consumer or the production printing facility or service) in a document management system, it is not a trivial matter for upload of the source documents from the document management system to the production print facility or service. In the typical circumstance, a customized interface is needed for such upload from the document management system to the production print system, and access for upload and otherwise must be controlled in a secure manner. Such requirement is cumbersome and costly since there are numerous third party document management systems.